Confessions of a Country Parson- What if we prayed like it was all we had left?

First a quick word about the first part of the title. I’m using this title as a heading under which to write about things related to the ministry I am doing in the church I pastor. Sometimes they might be humorous stories and sometimes they will be related to sermons I have preached. This one is related to the sermon I preached yesterday on Mark 6:30-32 and how Jesus calls the disciples to come and rest in him and his sufficiency after being out ministering.

One of the greatest joys and privileges of being a pastor is that I get to go and visit some of our most senior members who, for health reasons, are no longer able to attend church. This might mean visiting them at home, the hospital, or a nursing home. I always go hoping that I can be an encouragement to them. I want them to know that just because they are unable to attend the physical gatherings of the church that they are still very much a part of our local body and are regularly in our thoughts and prayers. A funny thing often happens during these visits. Sure, I might be an encouragement to them but almost without fail they end up being a great encouragement and blessing to me.

Why is that? Well, first of all these are people who have been Christians for many decades and the sharing of the wealth of their life experiences is a great treasure for this young pastor. But most importantly it is the common refrain of regular prayer. Often these mature Christians who have actively served the church for more years than I have been alive express their sadness that they can no longer physically serve like they once could. Then they say, “But I pray for the church and I pray for you.”

That really struck me over the past week. I have my (relative) youth, energy, and health. I’m able to work, serve, and travel. I can do, do, do. It is a great blessing and a fleeting blessing that will fade as the years continue to stack up or be taken in a split second should an accident or injury occur. I began to ponder how incredible it would be if Christians began to pray like these senior adults before our bodies failed, health vanished, and our ability to physically serve was dramatically curtailed? These Christians in their twilight years have had to learn to fully rely on the sufficiency of Jesus and the power of prayer because they can no longer live under the illusion that they can accomplish the work of the Kingdom by their power alone.

What if those of us who still have years (God willing) of service to give started recognizing our utter dependence upon God? A practical place to start with that is with prayer. I don’t just mean at dinnertime either. I mean praying for opportunities to share the Gospel with the lost. Praying for courage to engage when those opportunities present themselves. Praying that the Holy Spirit would be working in the hearts of the lost so that they would be receptive to the Gospel. Praying for unity in the church. Praying prayers of confession of sin and prayers of praise for the provision which God has made for us. Essentially, adopting an attitude that as Christians we absolutely must be a praying a people. Because to be in prayer is to be in a posture that recognizes our absolute dependence upon God.

So how about it? Instead of saving prayer as a sort of “last resort,” let us endeavor to make it our first resort and a priority in our lives and our churches.

Adventures in Fatherhood- “Clever Velociraptor”

There’s a scene in Jurassic Park where some velociraptors kill something. Okay, that was vague and could apply to just about every scene in Jurassic Park. Let me be more specific: There’s a scene in Jurassic Park where the head game warden/dino wrangler/red shirt ends up being tricked by some velociraptors. -SPOILER ALERT- He gets eaten. And dies. The point is that velociraptors are portrayed as being incredibly intelligent.

Where am I going with this? Well, our little velociraptor is really beginning to pick things up. Things that we didn’t teach him. He keeps running up against the electric fence but he never goes to the same place twice. He’s testing it for weaknesses. Or something like that.

Sometimes as Liam is doing/saying something new we both just stop, look at each other, and say, “Is he supposed to be able to do that?” I keep half expecting to walk into his room to find that he has turned his crib into a volcano-top lair and has adopted a cat and named it Mr. Bigglesworth. I won’t really be worried until he asks us for “ONE MIIILLLLION DOLLARS!”

All this is going somewhere. I promise. It is going to the videos below. Liam has been picking up letters and numbers at an astonishingly fast rate. He loves to point out the letters on Laura’s OBU sweatshirt and just about every day he learns a new one. Laura just informed me that he picked out the “K” in “Oklahoma”for the first time today. It’s a pretty neat thing to see the wheels turning and the little velociraptor learning. At the same time, I’ve been practicing standing perfectly still just in case I need to use that skill in the future. If it works for a T-Rex it must work for a velociraptor, right? Muldoon?

Protected: Adventures in Fatherhood- “Snow Day!”

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100 Movies to See Before You Die- “Roman Holiday”

Roman Holiday is a 1953 film that was directed by William Wyler and starred Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn (in her first starring role). This romantic comedy was well received by critics and audiences alike. It made 12 million dollars at the box office on a budget of 1.5 million dollars. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor [Eddie Albert]). It was also nominated for three BAFTA awards. It brought home Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress (Hepburn), Costume Design, and Writing. Hepburn was also recognized with a BAFTA for “Best British Actress.” To top off those awards, it has been a favorite on a number of AFI lists and ranked as their #4 romantic comedy of all time. So does this well regarded romantic comedy deserve to be called a classic?

Source

Should this film be considered a classic? When I first started the film my answer would have been no. Sure, Hepburn was putting in a good performance but I also found her a bit annoying. Plus, I had a very hard time getting past the age difference between Peck and Hepburn. He looked like her dad. That’s a hard thing to move beyond when they start making out. But as the movie unfolded I began to like it more. It was not the romantic comedy elements that sold it for me. It was the responsibility elements. In the end, Hepburn’s princess engages in some very un-romcom behavior and puts her obligations to her country and her family above her own personal feelings. Wow! That showed some real growth in her character and added a big measure of depth to the movie. Also, we see Peck’s character go from a reporter just trying to get a scoop to someone who genuinely cares for the person he is assigned to write about. All of that comes to a head in an absolutely perfect ending that I refuse to spoil. I’ll just say it is not your typical romcom ending and it is what makes this film a classic.

Would I own this film? That’s a tough one. I might pick it up at some point. Knowing what I do about the film I think will be better able to ignore some of the things that bothered me upon my first viewing. It is definitely one that you should watch even if the phrase “romantic comedy” would usually send up red flags. This is romantic comedy done right and with some depth and real character development.

Simplifying

To say my family has been blessed would be an understatement. In fact, if you look at the standard of living the vast majority of Americans (and much of Western society) enjoy it is absolutely staggering. For most of us, we live in the land of excess. We have houses packed to the gills with knick-knacks, memorabilia, hobby projects, clothes, food, gadgets, and more. In fact, sometimes our houses are so full of stuff that we have to start packing things into our garages. I’ve even seen this happen to such an extent that garages no longer house cars but instead boxes and boxes of unused junk. After the garages get full we rent storage units so that we can pay someone else to house our unused stuff.

When you stop to think about it for more than a few seconds our excess starts to seem, well, a bit excessive to say the least. Now before we get any further I need to make something clear: I am not in any way going to advocate for a poverty theology. Poverty theology makes the exact same theological mistake that prosperity theology does. Prosperity theology says you are somehow blessed and favored by God if you are rich and poverty theology says you are somehow blessed and favored by God if you are poor. Our righteousness comes not from riches or lack thereof but from Jesus.

So why is it such a big deal that we have so much stuff? There’s nothing inherently wrong with a few extra boxes of knick-knacks, right? True. But lets stop and think about what all that stuff represents.

1. All that unused stuff represents a lot of extra money that is now sitting around rotting away in cardboard boxes. Those dollars could have been used for the advancement of the Gospel but now they are in a box full of stuff you haven’t even looked at in a decade.
2. All that extra stuff makes you very immobile. We Christians often give ourselves a pass. We’ll live our lives our way. We’ll go to church and maybe give a little money in the offering plate. We’ll maybe do a service project or mission trip or two. Nothing too dramatic or taxing because we don’t want our lifestyle to be too upset by the demands of our faith. But what if we really took the Bible seriously? What if we really believed that God could (and is perfectly within His rights to do so) call any one of us at any time away from the life we know so some other place in service of the Kingdom? Suddenly, all that extra stuff makes pulling up stakes and relocating a lot more difficult. We like to think God would never ask us to do that, but the truth is, He’s already called us to radical discipleship. He’s already called us not to be entangled in the things of the world (2 Timothy 2:1-10). He’s already given us the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). He’s already made sure we know that in following Him we should not expect a life of leisure but rather a life of sacrifice (Luke 9:23-26). Knowing what the Bible says and the things that God has clearly called all Christians to do, can we really justify living our lives in a way that might be at odds with those things?
3. All that stuff can become an idol. We buy more and more stuff so that we can feel better about ourselves and better about our lives (Ever heard of retail therapy?). We buy more and more stuff so that we can keep up with our neighbors down the street. We go into fantastic levels of debt to buy everything from clothes and food to cars and TVs. We spend, spend, spend, spend on more and more things that will break, become obsolete, and ultimately leave us seeking the next big thing. It is a brutal and sometimes idolatrous cycle that can leave Christians unable to give generously of their time and resources to Kingdom work because they have to spend so much of their income servicing debt. They are such slaves to the debt that they have no extra money and they have to work so many extra hours in service to their debt masters that they have no time or energy to give to the Kingdom. Buying new things isn’t evil or sinful but if it hampers your ability to follow Jesus then that stuff has become an idol and instead of serving the Creator of the universe you are serving the cardboard boxes in your garage full of baseball cards or Precious Moments figurines.

So what can we do? Simplify. One of the advantages Laura and I have had in this regard is that we have moved a lot. When you have moved a lot and have gone through the process of packing up everything you own multiple times, you really begin to see what a burden having excessive things can become. More recently, I started to realize I had accumulated a ton of books, movies, and video games that I never used. They were literally sitting in boxes and taking up space. I sold them to Amazon. One of my biggest weaknesses in this area is technology. I’ve been endeavoring to simplify my technology life and become less enamored with the constant flow of newer and better phones, computers, tablets, etc. (I admit this is a very tough one for me and I’m certainly still a work in progress) “Excess” is going to look different from person to person but the chances are we all have many area we could simplify. Not only that, but as you begin to toss things (or give things away) and endeavor to simplify your life it will make the accumulation of stuff look much less appealing and that is a very good place to be.

So is all this just my opinion or is there some Scriptural guidelines that can help us as we prayerfully consider what this will look like in our own lives? One passage that comes quickly to mind is Mark 6:7-13. I’ve been studying this passage for my next sermon and I found it very interesting that Jesus sent out His disciples with very little.

7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Mk 6:7–13). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Is Jesus somehow saying that his disciples don’t need food, clothes, or money? Not at all. But it does show that the success of their mission will not be dependent upon their resources or abilities but rather on the authority of the one who sent them out. It shows that they are to be relying fully on Jesus and the power of the message he commissioned them to proclaim. He sends them out with the simplest of provisions so that they have to learn to trust in God’s provision.

Simplifying our lives and throwing away our junk is a very visible and visceral reminder that our lives are not our own. Our stuff is temporal and short-lived. Our lives are to be lived in service to God and not the American Dream. Our lifestyle should not in any way hamper us from being able to give of ourselves and our resources to the work of the Kingdom.

One final and personal thought on one of the intangibles of living a simple life. My grandmother passed away a little over a year ago. She lived the last part of her life in a little double wide home across the driveway from her youngest son and his family. Her house was not packed with knick-knacks and memorabilia but instead her many decades of life had been boiled down into the handful of things that were really important to her. An old Bible. A picture of my Grandpa. A wall that had framed photos of her many kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. When our family gathered in Washington for her funeral, my Mom and her brothers asked that if there was anything in Grandma’s house that was meaningful to a family member to go ahead and take it. There were not huge boxes of junk to sort through but it seemed like just about every person in our large family was able to find something that meant a lot to them and was tied to fond memories about Grandma. In pretty much every case it was something very small and very simple. For me, it was two small brown coffee mugs that I have associated with Grandma ever since I was a small child. I also took an old yellow blanket that I can always remember being at Grandma’s house. Simple things that mean a lot to me. When my life is done, I don’t want to leave my family with boxes of worthless junk to have to sort through and throw away. I want to be like my Grandma and leave countless good memories where something like a simple old coffee cup or little yellow blanket that leaves fuzz on everything serve as warm reminders of a life well lived.

Book Review- “The Admirals” by Walter R. Borneman

I picked up this book anxious to learn more about the four five-star admirals who were instrumental in orchestrating the allied victory during World War II. “The Admirals” certainly fulfilled that goal but it also provided something I was not expecting, a fascinating look at four very distinct styles of leadership.

The historical accounts of the book are fascinating. Borneman traces the histories of Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King back to a common source: The United States Naval Academy. He then builds out from there and details their early command experiences. While all ended up wearing the five-star rank, the incredibly varied accounts of how they reached the pinnacle of the Navy officer corps enables Borneman to share the ins and outs of a number of different aspects of the Navy. From salvage operations, to submarine commander, to Naval aviator, to commanding fleets responsible for the security of entire oceans, “The Admirals” provides a glimpse into many different facets of Navy life in the first half of the 20th century and chronicles the evolution of the Navy through the eyes of these four men.

Finally, I can’t overstate the value of this book to someone desiring to learn more about how to lead effectively. While these men had dramatically different personalities, they all ended up at the very top of the Navy. If you are looking for a good book to read on leadership you should definitely move this to the top of your list. Chances are, you’ll identify with one of the personalities involved and be able to learn from their successes and failures.

To sum up: This book it worth the price of admission for the history alone but is made even more valuable because of the helpful content on leadership.